Still On The Horizon
by Alory Shannon
Summary: At first glance it might not seem like they have much, if anything, in common, but they are united in spirit by something that sounds simple and straightforward and is actually anything but either. Oneshot drabble.


It has become tradition for two shinobi to meet for dinner on Tuesday night each week.

The kunoichi is a sixteen-year-old medic-nin with bright pink hair, vividly green eyes, and bold red-and-white attire. She has her family, friends, and a buzzing social life, a dazzling smile and countless dreams still well within reach.

Her perpetually-late companion is a thirty-year-old jounin, ex-ANBU, with untidy silver hair and only one flat, dark eye visible, and nothing in his closet aside from uniforms, save perhaps an old _yukata_ and some spare _Icha Icha_ novels. When not with his team or on duty, he is only ever seen alone, most often with his nose in a book, what little is visible of his expression bored and blasé and perhaps a little empty.

At first glance it might not seem like they have much, if anything, in common, but they are united in spirit by something that sounds simple and straightforward and is actually anything but either:

They're the ones who always end up being left behind.

Kakashi thinks about this often, this parallel of sorts that draws the two of them together even though they never directly intersect, wondering what it is that has made them this way. Why he, the strongest member of his team, wasn't strong enough to keep his companions from death. Why she, once the weakest member of her team (probably still the weakest to be honest, probably doomed to remain that way despite the fact that he's seen her working and sweating and nearly _killing_ herself to overcome that apparent weakness, which is truly nothing more than being the one normal person on a team of geniuses and oddities), wasn't weak enough to make them want to stay close to her and protect her. Why neither of them can let go of their old teammates, regardless of how obvious and incontestable their state of abandonment is.

It might be worse for Sakura though, he thinks. At least for him it had been a clean break; his loved ones were simply gone, loneliness and guilt lingering thick over their memories, and while that pain was a constant, it was ironically merciful in that he didn't have any hope of seeing them again, of changing things, of telling them all the things he wished he'd thought to mention before. They were never coming back, that could be said with solid certainty. It could be accepted, perhaps never quite forgotten or truly gotten over, but it was a scar rather than an open wound, leaving him haunted but more or less whole.

Sakura has no such peace of mind. Her teammates are still alive, though if she makes the wrong decision or isn't strong enough or smart enough or fast enough or Fate is unkind once more, they won't be any longer. She struggles endlessly to bring them close only to have them tear away from her again, each time more painful than the last, but still she struggles on, because they are her most precious people and she doesn't care how much she hurts so long as she's there to make _them_ stop hurting.

She doesn't know it, but that's one of the many reasons Kakashi has always been careful to keep his distance, to hold her at arm's length, though admittedly he's relented somewhat now. Still, he knows he's been lucky thus far, but that luck can't hold forever, and their other two teammates both keep regularly trying their best to get themselves killed, and she's already far too attached to them. He won't allow her to get too close to him as well, he can't allow it, because he doesn't want his eventual, inevitable death to hurt her any more than it has to.

And yet he has long wondered if he was doing the right thing, if in pushing her away, he wasn't abandoning her, too; so when Sakura suggested meeting once a week to catch up with each other, Kakashi had agreed, mostly due to the silent plea in her eyes, the way she grasped at his shirtsleeve like it was the only thing in the world she had left to hold on to.

She always seems so happy, so hopeful during their meals, chattering on about nothing and everything - everything except the two people missing from both of their lives right now, that is. Still, every now and then, she'll slow, usually when he's walking her home after dinner, suddenly unable to meet his eye, her voice will drop, and she'll talk about what will be, about how everything will be alright, how Sasuke will come home and Naruto will have to start worrying about passing the chuunin exam and she'll have her hands full again with keeping them from beating each other bloody over stupid, unimportant little everyday things and the Akatsuki will be stopped and maybe Kakashi will even learn to be on time and everyone will have a happy ending.

A happy ending. It sounds so perfect when she says it, but really he wonders if they're not already too broken for it to be possible. At the same time, he thinks that _any_ ending might be a happy one at this point, simply because it would be an _ending,_ a cessation of the pain and a stop to all the mindless violence and a way to get the ghosts who are still sometimes more substantial to him than the living, breathing people at his fingertips to finally, finally leave him alone.

They'll walk in silence after Sakura's done talking about the future, side by side, parallel lines that still don't touch, both wanting everything she's said to be true, wishing things could be that simple, but knowing that each time she talks about that future, it's become just a little bit less likely. He'll stop at the bottom of the stairs leading up to her apartment; she'll stand there beside him for a moment or two before starting upwards, only going up three steps before turning back, putting her just above eye-level with Kakashi, who hasn't moved and is watching and waiting to be sure she makes it safely inside.

_They will come back, won't they?_ she always asks, green eyes shadowy in the dim light of the stairwell that does nothing to hide the worry haunting her face. _Someday…we'll all be together again, right?_

Kakashi looks her straight in the eye, and there are no false smiles, no cheerful _don't worry, Sakura-chan, everything will go back to the way it was_ this time, because he can't tell her that kind of lie again and she's old enough to know better, smart enough to see right through him, and more than strong enough to hear the truth.

_I don't know,_ is always the only thing he can find to say, and it's not what she wants to hear, but he can tell she appreciates his honesty, because she nods and gives him a weak smile before she bites her lip and continues on up the stairs. He watches her go, not moving an inch until he hears her door click shut, trying to think of something more to say, something he can do, some way to make sure her future will be different than his past and present.

He never thinks of anything, though, and so it surprises him when one Tuesday night, instead of heading up the stairs, she takes another step down and reaches for him, warm, soft little hands encircling his bare forearm and tugging, her expression desolate, beseeching, almost desperate. Once again he can't say no for fear of breaking her completely and before he knows it, she's pulled him up the stairs after her and he finds himself standing barefoot in the main room of her small, spotlessly neat apartment, watching her disappear into the kitchen to make them some tea.

Their interaction is entirely innocent, but when her knee nudges his as she sits beside him on the couch, there's a sudden tension that wasn't there before. She flushes slightly and moves away just a little too quickly, and he can't help but start to notice certain things about her that he never has before and that he doesn't really want to and that he can't _stop_ noticing now (the shapely curve of her legs, the gentle still-growing swell of her breasts, the fullness of her lips, her subtle scent), but his presence seems to comfort her, so this becomes a part of their weekly ritual, too.

And maybe late one Tuesday night, one of them will do something, maybe just on accident or maybe entirely on purpose, and the tension will snap and they'll take things too far and they might regret it but that won't stop it from happening again, because it'll be what they both need. For Kakashi, it will be proof that he _can_ do something for someone, that he can make a difference, that there _is_ something that he can share with Sakura that he could never share with Naruto or Sasuke, that something precious still remains for him to protect. For Sakura, it will be proof that she hasn't been overlooked, that there is still someone there who wants to stay by her side, that Kakashi _does_ see her and that he does care about her. And for both, it's a way to forget and to remember and to feel close to someone, as close as two people could possibly be, a way to not be alone, and to live and enjoy the present without letting the weight of the past or the future drag them down.

But for now they're just parallel lines with a careful space kept between them, coexisting tracks that steadily grow closer as they continue on in the same direction and yet haven't quite touched, still waiting to reach their vanishing point on the distant horizon.

* * *

><p>KakashiSakura – They're the ones who always end up being left behind.


End file.
